Academic

IBM and Sun

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

With so few fun deals to talk about these days, we have to enjoy the ones we have.  The IBM acquisition of Sun Microsystems seems to be coming to fruition at $9.55 a share ($7B), representing an almost 100% premium over the pre-announcement (or pre-rumor) price. (WSJ story here.) In fact, Sun recently lowered it's original asking price to make sure it kept I.B.M. in the game.  The new agreement has a lower price but a pretty strong termination penalty, according to reports. 

Remember that Sun shares were $250 in 2000, when Sun touted that it was the "dot in 'dot.com'" and this acquisition takes on a lot more narrative than it had before.  Here is the old guard,  I.B.M., snagging up Sun, one of the hottest hardware companies in the 1990s.  Everything old is new again.

For nostalgia's sake, here is a 10-year retrospective on Sun's share price, as compared to the NASDAQ composite index:

Full post as published by Conglomerate on April 03, 2009 (boomark / email).